The Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) tonight elected people to various positions of the union’s executive committee including faculty representatives and an Equality and Diversity Officer.
The elections took place at the union’s AGM, which was held this evening in the Robert Emmet Theatre in the Arts Building.
Each of the candidates gave a short speech preceding the elections to an audience of around 35 people, GSU’s quorum. The AGM did not meet quorum initially, before Vice President Gisèle Scanlon brought in postgraduates from the postgraduate reading room.
Many of the roles were uncontested, including the Engineering, Maths and Science (EMS) faculty officer’s position, which was filled by Daniel Joseph Ringis. Ringus, who last year served as the EMS faculty representative. He promised to continue his work to increase access to facilities and equipment after-hours for EMS students.
The role of EMS faculty representative, effectively the deputy of the faculty officer, was also uncontested and was filled by Lydia Thompson. In her speech Thompson cited her work within a student union during her time as an undergraduate and said that student unions were “a good way to give back”.
The only candidate to stand for Health Science (HS) faculty officer was Arunava Guha, who was deemed elected. Guha promised to work on the issue of burnout among health sciences students as an “an issue people tend not to talk about”. Guha stated that he would create “a safe space for a group interaction” among health science students on the issue.
The position of HS faculty representative was filled by Megan Moore, who ran uncontested. Moore has submitted an application to become the union’s treasurer but decided to withdraw that application in order to run for HS faculty representative as she said she was more interested in a “community” focused role.
The position of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) faculty officer was the first contested race of the night with three candidates standing for the role. Sarah Allen was elected following her promise to “help people in any kind of capacity” that she could.
The position of AHSS faculty representative also saw three candidates stand. Maeve Gorham, a law masters student, was elected. Gorham said that having been an undergraduate in Trinity she “understands the system” and had “known what it feels like to be in Trinity and to feel a bit lost”. Gorham said she would encourage greater use of course Facebook groups to create a “greater sense of community”.
The final position to be filled was the union’s equality and diversity officer. Adam Randera ran uncontested and was elected. Randera told the meeting that he had a “fairly substantial history of student union work and student activism” and said that along with the other members of his course had already begun work to run “an event to celebrate diversity in Trinity”.
There were no candidates for the role of research officer, which is required to be held by a PhD student and so the position was not filled this evening.
